The present invention relates to weapons systems for military fighter aircraft, and more specifically to a system for equipping an existing aircraft having only air-to-ground weapons capability with an air-to-air weapons system.
Modern fighter aircraft utilize very extensive and sophisticated electronic packages for controlling the weapons systems. Such aircraft are designed, built and equipped to utilize particular types of weapons, i.e., air-to-ground and/or air-to-air, but the size and complexity of the electronics equipment has generally made modification of an existing system to employ weapons other than those with which the aircraft is originally designed to operate impractical.
It is a principal object of the present invention to provide an effective and practical system for modifying an existing military fighter aircraft equipped to employ only air-to-ground weapons to add the capability of carrying and launching air-to-air weapons.
A further object is to provide a novel combination of hardware and circuitry for incorporation with an existing military aircraft to expand the weapons capabilities thereof.
Another object is to provide means for mounting a pair of air-to-air missile launchers at a position on a military aircraft designed for suspension-type mounting of air-to-ground weapons.
A still further object is to provide means for carrying air-to-air weapons on an existing military aircraft equipped with an air-to-ground weapons system, together with supplementary electronic equipment for integration with the weapons system electronics to control the deployment of said air-to-air weapons.
Still another object is to provide a military aircraft with the capability of carrying and deploying air-to-air missiles by utilizing existing aircraft wiring for two purposes through electrical means effective upon pilot command to disconnect the wiring from its original point of origin and reconnect it to an auxiliary point of origin.
An additional object is to provide a suspension-type mounting system for air-to-air missiles which may be selectively attached to and detached from the bomb rack hooks on a wing pylon of a conventional military fighter aircraft.
Other objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.